Thursday, 27 December 2007

Blindsight and its connection with the in-built neural function and the space being charted by our neurons. Eric Harth "The creative loop" page 137

"The experiments with D.B. were continued over a number of years and always yielded the same results: The light pattern projected into the patient's blind field caused no awareness on his part, and yet information was clearly received by the brain."

"But the remarkable fact is that this information, although usable, is not accompanied by any feeling of awareness. There evidently is, as L. Weiskrantz puts it, a 'straightforward and unambiguous route ....

It is down to the structions he (ref. Julian Jaynes) posits, that direct the neurons to perform an operation, or the .. that the .determining tendency.. mentioned by Julian Jaynes for ... what I see as a preparation and executive stage (ref. 'thinking's alternate phases'). As about the perfection of the operation is mentioned by .greek name.. attributed to Edelman. In Nature 1998 magazine the decision making is hinted in the unconscious whereas in the same issue there is the reference to zombie and what the brain sees and the mind do not see. Again in the paper by (ref. .....) about savant consciousness and the ability of the brain his studies revealed.

May be consciousness play the role of the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It leads and directs an orchestra but is neither the composer nor the musician. It gives directions and cues to the musicians when to perform but neither writes the play nor play the musical instruments.

Peter ... gives an account of the way consciousness plays tricks even in tasks which are very demanding and supposedly are rational. But our rationality doesn't lay there. Our rationality, or I would say the rationality of the mind lies in the function of the neurons themselves. It is the circuits we so admire in the architecture of the computers. All the boolean algebra that computer chips do so efficiently. Because what is rationality? Simple one plus one makes two, but in repeated almost endless loops, something our neurons do a lot more efficiently.(are a lot more efficient in doing so).

There are plenty of hints which display the real role of the unconscious part of our brain but always have been downplayed. I first came across the first one in Erich Harth's book, "The creative loop". In a paragraph he mentioned about the natives in Hawaii when they first saw the ship of Captain Cook. They totally missed it, they did not even see it, their consciousness did not have a concept of a ship and therefore did not take into consideration the stimuli their brain was sending. Such an overriding effect that consciousness produced is startling but it can be explained by the way the brain works and what consciousness records. At the same time puts consciousness function in its proper perspective.

Its what Julian Jaynes mentioned about the scientists' places of making their discoveries. The three bbb's bed bus bath.

"Consciousness studies a problem and prepares it as a struction, a process which may result in a sudden appearance of the solution as if out of nowhere. During World War II, British physicists used to say that they no longer made their discoveries in the laboratory; they had their three B’s where their discoveries were made—the bath, the bed, and the bus."

I do not know what to call it. Unconscious has been tarnished and does not give the perspective I envision for the whole process. Maybe be it is better just to use a term, something irreducible, solid and straightforward. Something that actually exists and its presence cannot be denied.

The .. is using the immense power of neurons abandon consciousness in its composer role, rely on our neurons, let the structions do their work and should be content and should not be apprehensive of putting our consciousness at the back seat, what it matters is get the job done, and with our consciousness as a spectator sit back relax and and enjoy the trip.

Illusions can directly be attributed to the concepts the collective human mind has accumulated in his efforts to understand reality. These concepts continue to be in force and muddle up the human mind's efforts to elucidate further reality. (my refeenc) and arragher;s reference.

The illusion exists and is propagated in the mental constructs human individuals create in their attempts to understand nature's workings and in what is called philosophy. The myriads of concepts which they do not have a foothold in reality. Of course humans efforts to understand reality have employed imagination. And the use of their imagination had to follow some rules in order to be able to expand beyond a limited area, be consistent as what has been contemplated in the past had to be the starting point on what to be contemplated in the future. Need a continuity. But the final goal was the process which required elucidation and in that process the concepts needed elucidation were finite and specific. That means a lot of the concepts invented had to be abandoned, their use being temporary, a transitional stage. Once the concepts of the original process have been elucidated (achieved) the redundant concepts need to be abandoned, have to be abandoned. Their use obsolete. This can be seen in the words, in every day life are going out of fashion, they become forgotten and discarded. The same goes with models, redundant concepts have built, and which have been employed to explain natural phenomena. It is what is known as paradigm shifts 9Scardos reference) and he book of ... gives a thorough account of ways of thought that have been abandoned, even concepts which were widely accepted and concepts that stirred the hearts and directed the lives of many people (reference mine)

So therefore the zombie is not the unconscious part of our consciousness. It is our consciousness itself. I do not know what possessed the first person that coined the term zombie for such an obviously higher function of the brain, but certainly it was other than admiration or even reverence to such an exquisite operation. Probably the result of consciousness within himself which could not bear the thought it was demoted to a lesser role than it was supposed to be playing.

Friday, 21 December 2007

The brain sees the whole and that is how it acts upon the objects in the world, as wholes, holistically.

The brain makes up the whole from the parts. The holistic approach and action of the brain toward the environment is a mode of function that is passed to our consciousness as well. We approach everything presented to our consciousness in a holistic manner, not as individual separate objects. More precisely the part of a whole that has drawn our attention, the stimulus from the surroundings our attention is focused upon, drags along every other part that makes up the whole.

That is how the gestalt process works, where even if a small part of a pattern is presented to us is sufficient to bring along to our consciousness the whole pattern. Our consciousness or brain is making up the whole from any of its individual parts.

Our consciousness acts in a holistic manner with concepts too. It includes within it the anticipation John Holland attributes to his reverberating cell assemblies and as such it directs our actions that about to happen in the future. Concepts connected by threads woven into a whole submerge in our consciousness, that represent our edge of consciousness at that particular moment, as it shifts in time, constantly re-arranging its contents. An uncanny action which if it is left undisturbed it will surprise us.

If however attempt to interfere, applying doctrines alien to human nature, adhering to the distorted simplified models prevalent in society we loose that spontaneity that our holistic consciousness amply give us. The holistic nature of consciousness becomes a drawback, as it treats the part as a whole, ignoring everything else. It directs our attention into a single thing, lead us in a state of ignorance and in one-dimensional overriding approach to life events.

Monday, 17 December 2007

Charged particles must be close enough together such that each particle influences many nearby charged particles, rather than just interacting with the closest particle (these collective effects are a distinguishing feature of a plasma). The plasma approximation is valid when the number of electrons within the sphere of influence (called the Debye sphere whose radius is the Debye (screening) length) of a particular particle is large. The average number of particles in the Debye sphere is given by the plasma parameter, Λ.

Each particle influences many nearby charged particles. Cellular automata? Sphere of influence, and within that sphere of influence the necessity for a large number of particles. Charged meaning that they must be excited, being ready for exerting other particles and by being exerted by other particles.

Particles as entities, and entities existing in many forms. Entities as concepts, ideas, processes. Oscillating, excited. Ever ready to participate in processes, to influence and be influenced by other entities nearby. Within the sphere of influence. and whenever there is a large number of entities, then they get into step, become synchronised, a resonance field, a plasma? The synchronized entities can easily assimilate newcomer entities and their power nonlinear, geared.

Entities as concepts. Thoughts thought from men organised in a similar manner, the plasma mode. Primeval forces, the powerhouses of cosmos whose remnants are seen in the huge gas clouds the nursery of stars, the stars themselves, the core of earth. And what we see in the universe a result of harnessing that awesome power? The result of the myriad similar processes undergoing in the very same plasma, generating the forms our senses detect. The phenomenally stable objects our experience witnesses. But inside they are other than stable. Stability is phenomenal. An illusion?

And the objects we observe, out of the plasmas of entities, so delicately balanced around minute determining initial conditions, chaotic developments, the starting points, which if upset will violently re-arrange the whole plasma, the object so dearly ingrained in our minds. Our minds in step with the object, intertwined and spawned by the same processes that gave rise to the objects.

and what about the grand-father clocks against the wall, their knocking vibrating in step, synchronisation

Results are presented for a theoretical model, known as the ion model (IM), recently elaborated to calculate the radiative opacity of a hot dense plasma. The density functional theory is used to obtain the general set of self-consistent field equations that describe the state of the whole ensemble of plasma atoms and ions. Theoretical features of the Hartree–Fock–Slater model, the detail configuration account, and the IM are considered. The IM is used for optimal selections of compound chemical compositions for laser and heavy ion target designs.

radiative as radiating? Self-consistent field equations that describe the state of the whole ensemble of plasma atoms and ions? Atoms in a plasma vibrating in a lock-step fashion? Oscilatting in lock-step?

Tuesday, 4 December 2007

There is a quality more fundamental than consciousness. Its influence and impact more pronounced, yet in my mind the underpinning concept elusive. Consciousness a neurological product mostly used to pamper our egos, to make us proud of ourselves, to build our theories of mind. But there is a more fundamental level, more powerful that springs out from the interconnected all-surpassing reality network.

Reality as it is overwhelmed and exists as such, by dynamic processes driven by the fundamental forces. Ubiquitous forces constantly in action from the quantum to the cosmic level, bring out, realise another force within us. Consciousness, that we know, one of its products.

But consciousness, that we know, does not have a deciding influence. It can be shut off, blacked out, possibly by restricting the blood flow to that particular region in the brain, where the module responsible for raising it, resides. But that doesn't mean that the individual, whose consciousness module shuts off, ceases to exist or stops performing. Its body still vibrant and very much alive, the involuntary nervous system, and not only, still kicking in and take matters cared for, but not only. It outperforms in the active tasks, that living demands execution for, from when the consciousness module was around to applaud or mollify its actions.

Monday, 3 December 2007

What is implied by 'structural stabilities', is that we sense the world as static, while in reality, the world is dynamic. What we sense is a view from a window, in space and time, in one of the branches of a chain of dynamically evolved processes. The view of the world through that window in that particular instance, frozen in a single unit of perception to form our conscious experience.

Is that the result of the unitary nature of consciousness? The way consciousness materialises in our brain. The vehicle, by which the product of consciousness is transported? The static nature of the percept produced, a false sense, overriding the continuity inherent in the dynamic event? Does that imply a quantum origin for consciousness, with its included packet idea? The single percept being the packet? The quantum.

In defining what triggers chaotic events the following is relevant "chaotic dynamics possess both sensitivity to initial conditions and computational unpredictability" and "arbitrarily small fluctuations are thus inflated into global instabilities by the "butterfly effect", in which a perturbation such as a butterfly can become the source of a subsequent tropical cyclone. A chaotic system is arbitrarily sensitive to perturbation and hence responsive".

By taking in account the way we use our consciousness in our lives the above definitions provide a measure of its use and the manner it acts and determines events in the world around us. Our consciousness is extremely sensitive to stimuli and it does produce effects that are in comparison a cyclone in its track in the world.

Our consciousness can detect minute changes, fluctuations in the stimuli the world sends to our brains and is capable by the actions triggered by in the individual, to have a profound effect in world events.